fun christmas recipes.

I have had a few people ask me for two of the recipes I made for my party a few weeks ago, so I wanted to put them on here before Christmas incase you want to get the ingredients to make them!


Cream Cheese Penguins

These little guys are so adorable!  Because I was in a crunch for time,  I only put the beak on one of them but, as you can see, you can tell what they are without the beak!  The website I found also put red scarves on them using pimentos or strips of red bell pepper.  I personally tried the red bell pepper and it did not work at all.

What You'll Need:

18 jumbo black olives, pitted

1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened

18 small black olives

1 carrot

Directions:

1. Cut a slit in the big olives lengthwise.  You may even want to remove a small portion of the olive to make room for cream cheese.  CAREFULLY insert the cream cheese.  I would roll cream cheese together in little balls, then stick them in there.  Slice the carrot into 1/4 inch thick rounds.  The smaller, the better here!  Cut a small notch or v-shape out of the carrot and use the piece for the beak.  To insert a beak, you will need to make a small hole using a toothpick.

2. Set the big olive with cheese onto the carrot slice.  Now get a small olive and place it on top of the large olive, and secure carefully with a toothpick.

Christmas Tree Cheese Ball

This tree was so beautiful in the beginning that nobody wanted to eat it, and then slowly but surely it started to tip over and eventually feel down!  It was the butt of the joke of the party.  I got a lot of compliments on this, though and it is so easy to make!

What You'll Need:

3 packages (8 ounces each) cream cheese, softened

4 cups shredded Cheddar cheese (16 ounces)

1 tablespoon minced garlic

2 tablespoons basil pesto

1/4 teaspoon yellow mustard

Red pepper sauce

1/4 cup finely chopped parsley or cilantro

1/4 cup pine nuts or sliced almonds

2 tablespoons chopped red bell pepper

Piece of lemon peel, if desired

Assorted crackers, if desired

Directions:

1. Stir together cream cheese and Cheddar cheese; divide in half. Stir pesto into 1 half; stir garlic, mustard and 2 or 3 drops pepper sauce into other half. Cover each half; refrigerate about 4 hours or until firm enough to shape.

2. You can then either make two seperate trees, or combine the two and make one tree (which is what I did).

3. Just before serving, press parsley evenly on the tree(s). Press pine nuts onto tree(s) in string form for garland. Press bell pepper pieces onto trees for ornaments. Top each tree with star shape cut from lemon peel. Serve with crackers.